You are on page 1of 43

The Perfect Escape Suzanne Park

Visit to download the full and correct content document:


https://ebookmass.com/product/the-perfect-escape-suzanne-park-4/
Thank you for downloading
this Sourcebooks eBook!

You are just one click away from…


• Being the first to hear about author
happenings
• VIP deals and steals
• Exclusive giveaways
• Free bonus content
• Early access to interactive activities
• Sneak peeks at our newest titles

Happy reading!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Books. Change. Lives.


Copyright © 2020 by Suzanne Park
Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks
Cover art © Louisa Cannell
Internal design by Danielle McNaughton
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing
from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are
used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are
trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their
respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product
or vendor in this book.
“Money Trees” words and music by Victoria Garance Alixe Legrand,
Alex Kristian Scally, and Kendrick Lamar. Copyright © 2010, 2012
BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, Victoria Garance Alixe
Legrand, Alex Kristian Scally, WB Music Corp., Hard Working Black
Folks, Inc. and Top Dawg Music. All rights for Victoria Garance Alixe
Legrand and Alex Kristian Scally administered by BMG Rights
Management (UK) Limited. All rights for Hard Working Black Folks,
Inc. and Top Dawg Music Administered by WB Music Corp. All rights
reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Music and Hal Leonard LLC.
Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
www.sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the
publisher.
Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover
For my family.
(Mom and Dad, sorry about all the cussing.)
“Money trees is the perfect place for shade. And that’s just how I
feel, nah nah.”
—Kendrick Lamar, karaoked by Nate Kim in the shower
Chapter One
Nate

I’d recited this blah script more than fifty times.


“Welcome to the Zombie Laboratory. I’m Nate, and I’ll be your host
for the evening. Can I get a show of hands of anyone who has been
to an escape room before?” Near the main entrance, a goateed guy
with chunky black glasses raised a hand. Ten tipsy thirtysomething-
year-old bachelorette party ladies giggled next to him, ignoring me.
They were all wearing strappy, sparkly heels, of course. Who the hell
wore heels to a zombie escape room?
“Only one?” I asked. “Okay, show of hands—how many of you
have recently been bitten or eaten by a zombie?”
A few titters came from some guys near the front. This time
everyone made eye contact with me and smiled. Whew! I’d just
added that joke in and was testing it out for the first time.
“That’s good! Because that would mean we’d be trapped in the
room with more undead than our zoning permit allows.”
No laughs.
Shit.
I’d have to try out another line next time.
The group chattered as we walked down the dimly lit, flickering
hallway.
To my relief, the bachelorettes didn’t look drunk enough to require
janitorial assistance (of the vomit-cleaning variety). No stumbling
backward in those ill-advised heels. No high-pitched, eardrum-
bursting squeals. No swaying.
Drunk customers were the worst customers. Actually, scratch that.
Drunk-to-the-point-of-puking customers were the absolute worst
customers. I’d gotten to the point where spotting them was easy,
and I had the power to refuse service during the waiver form
process.
“Can’t we just staaaaart? My heels are killing me!” The pouty
bride-to-be swept her hair off her shoulder and crossed her arms.
“I’m SUF. FER. ING!” Her girlfriends gathered round and gave her
hugs.
Don’t roll your eyes, Nate. Don’t.
“Not too much longer,” I said with a smile.
Sometimes, if the group’s vibe is good, I help give clues for some
of the puzzles. But this group? Nah, they weren’t worth the time.
With all the side-eying and sighing, I knew they weren’t into it.
The other large party in this group was a bunch of douchebros
from Houzzcalls, a telemarketing software start-up down the street.
They wore company shirts with WE MAKE HOUZZCALLS across their
chests. Judging by the hooting, hollering, and advanced handshake
coordination, I’m guessing these guys were in sales, not software
development. They probably found a Groupon or were here for
mandatory team bonding, not because they actually liked puzzles or
were zombie aficionados. Unlike us dedicated employees, who lived
and breathed this stuff.
Judging by the looks of these guys, this sorry bunch would panic
after thirty minutes when the halftime buzzer honked, a cue for the
zombies to lean harder on the barricaded door. The undead got
feistier in the second half, chomping and snapping their teeth as
they pushed their way through. The music would speed up, and the
clock would tick louder. It was all part of the game. A game I loved.
On the hour mark, I pushed open the heavy metal door and
dropped my voice an octave. “Good luck.”
Once we entered, the gigantic glowing red digital clock on the wall
started the one-hour countdown. The first clue was laid out on the
metal laboratory table, a sixty-piece jigsaw puzzle spelling out the
next set of instructions. It went ignored by everyone except the trio
of Russian exchange students who had signed up at the very last
possible minute.
After twenty-five minutes, one of the Russians yelled, “Done!” He
was over six feet tall, had a super-chiseled face, and commanded my
attention when he read aloud, “Make haste! What you need next is
in the attaché case!” His brow furrowed. “Attaché case? What is
that?” He stared at the bros and bachelorettes, who were paired off
and leaning against the wall, whispering, laughing, touching, and
ready for their post–escape room orgy.
The Russians searched along the walls for a case, not realizing it
was in my hand. I could offer help, but they needed to ask me for it.
Those were the rules. The attaché case held a key that would chain-
lock the door, keeping out the soon-to-stampede army of zombies.
My prediction? This group wouldn’t even finish the second clue.
They’d be devoured by zombies at the thirty-two-, maybe thirty-
three-minute mark.
Just shy of half an hour, a warning alarm went off, and the door
with the broken padlock and chain pushed open a little. Grotesque,
gray, mutilated arms flailed through the widened opening, and the
groaning and moaning commenced.
The bachelorette party switched gears from mad flirting to scream-
shrieking, “Oh my God!” on repeat. They retreated back into the far
corner away from the door, stumbling over the wussy tech sales
guys as both parties ran as far away from the zombies as possible.
I shook the briefcase in my hand, hoping someone would hear the
padlock and key clattering inside. Like a giant, adult rattle. Come
and get it! Achtung! Did Russian people know German?
The room was divided by the zombie arm blockade: bachelorettes
and sales guys on one side, and the exchange students and me on
the other.
I rattled the briefcase one more time.
“Is that the attachment case?” one of the exchange students
asked, pointing to my hand.
I nodded, and all three exchange students bolted toward me. The
girl reached me first and flipped up the clasps. The thirty-minute
alarm went off, and the zombies barreled into the room.
Too late.
There were eight zombies in all, and they split into two groups and
moaned and groaned as they made their way to their human
victims. At thirty-one minutes, the female exchange student was the
last one standing, and she jumped on the table with the attaché
case high above her head, wild-eyed and ready to use the case as a
weapon. One of the crawling zombies behind her tapped her foot.
Gotcha. Game over.
The clock froze at thirty-one minutes. The zombies exited the way
they came in, and all of the overhead fluorescents flooded the room
with intense light. It was the worst escape room effort I’d ever seen.
With eyes filled with disappointment, each of the Russians shook
my hand and said they had a good time. “How many clues were
there?” the girl asked.
I didn’t feel like sugarcoating. “Ten. You guys had a tough group to
work with. But thanks so much for coming.” I had a pocket full of
“Please review us on Yelp!” cards, but I only gave those to winners,
people who would rave about this place. Winning groups usually
came up with a system, like division of clues, or everyone solving
problems together. Losers broke into factions immediately like, say,
exchange students versus humping party animals.
Unfortunately for me, losers gave weak tips.
“Let’s go get some booze to celebrate our loss!” cheered one of the
bros as he walked out with one of the bachelorette partiers, his hand
sliding down the small of her back. The rest of the group shuffled
out too, giggling and guffawing as they exited.
The bride patted my face and said, “You’re adorable! My fiancé is
Korean too,” then stumbled out. I was surprised she could tell I was
Korean. Usually people assumed I was Chinese. Sometimes
Japanese. Even kids at school who’d known me forever thought I
was Chinese.
“Can I come out now?” a muffled voice cried out from the closet
on the far wall.
“Uh, sure? Everyone’s gone.”
The door creaked open. I backed away as a mutilated female
zombie wearing a crumpled witch hat stumbled out.
Chapter Two
Nate

There were entrails hanging out where her belly button should’ve
been.
“I was starting to get a little claustrophobic.” The girl blinked
rapidly, adjusting her eyes to the flickering radiant lights. “I’m Kate,
the new ‘spooky seasonal feature’ they added last week.” She took
one quick look at my Feed Me (Braaaains)! T-shirt and tattered
jeans, then focused her gaze on my face.
My eyes and ears tuned into her every move, my whole body on
high alert. I was trapped in a room with a zombie girl. All the other
zombies I’d worked with were dudes. “I’m Nate.” I shrugged, trying
not to cringe at our cutesy rhyming names, not quite sure why I was
shrugging in the first place.
Everything on my body that could possibly sweat did. Instant oil
slicks involuntarily formed on my palms, feet, and face T-zone, and
there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.
Was it weird to think she was cute? She had shining brown eyes
and a button nose that crinkled adorably each time she looked at the
fluorescent lights. Well, as adorable as a zombified girl could be,
with all that makeup, straggly hair, and fake wounds. Why did she
take this “zombie girl in the closet” role? She could seriously star in
commercials or something like that.
This girl was way out of my league, though. Out of my dimension,
even. My heart pounded as my chest tightened, giving me the
sensation that my body was trying to choke my heart out of my
chest cavity. God, why was I so awkward around girls? And a zombie
girl, no less.
Not knowing what else to do next, I extended my clammy, sweat-
pooled hand, and we shook firmly, like we were coaches facing off in
a football game.
“Nice to meet you, Nate,” she said, then stretched her arms high
above her head. “That closet is way too small for someone my
height. And I’m only five foot three and a half.” After hopping around
on both feet, she added, “My feet are asleep!”
“So, you’re the new big finale, jumping out of the closet at the
end? You’re here from now through Halloween, and then what—are
you coming back for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas?” I
was torn between being ecstatic about her new role and being
terrified, knowing she’d be hiding in the closet for fifty-nine minutes
of each session, maybe listening to me give my opening spiel. Even
with fifty-plus escape room games under my belt, my self-confidence
shrank by the second at the mere thought of being in future sessions
with this zombie girl.
“Yeah, I’m just a seasonal worker, not a year-rounder like you. Will
work for food. Or brains,” she said, giving a nod toward my shirt. A
boom of thunder rumbled and echoed through the building, taking
me by surprise. Thunderstorms were a rarity in Seattle, something to
do with the cool breeze on the Pacific Ocean. Something I didn’t
really pay much attention to in junior high science class, but maybe
should have.
“Hey, can you do me a favor?” she asked.
Gulping down my fear, I replied, “Depends. What do you need? If
you need a ride home or something, then maybe?” My mom’s 2002
Honda was a busted piece of crap and shimmied at fifty-five miles
per hour, its top speed, but it got the job done, driving from point A
to point B. But if Kate wanted to borrow money, she was shit out of
luck. All of my wages went toward my Xbox subscription, college
fund, and savings for a business I’d launch in a few years. I had
nothing to spare.
“I need you to tell me which black eye looks better.” She pointed
double-finger guns at her face. “Left eye…or the right one? I’m
trying to perfect my makeup artistry for work again tomorrow.”
Damn, she was working a shift tomorrow, and unfortunately I
wasn’t. My stomach twinged with disappointment. Or hunger. Maybe
both.
“I—I—I like the one on the left. It gives your eye a gaunt, hollow
look,” I said hesitantly as she raised an eyebrow at me.
She pulled a mirror from her purse and examined both eyes.
“Interesting. I kind of like the other one. It looks more realistic to
me. Like I’m not trying too hard to look dead, you know?”
What in the hell was she talking about? Both of her eyes were
“dead”-looking. I’d worked at this zombie escape room job for a
year. Read every zombie survival guide I could get my hands on.
Watched every zombie movie and every episode of The Walking
Dead more than once. I knew my zombie shit.
“Yeah, I agree,” I replied, and motioned for her to come with me to
the employee lockers in the break room.
“So, actually, could I get a lift home maybe?” she asked as we
opened our lockers. “I didn’t really think about how I’d look taking
public transportation. And you know, the rain could make it all
worse.” She removed her hat and smiled, revealing a fake missing
tooth and bloody gums. I had to admit, she took her zombie job
very seriously. Kate was convincingly, purposefully gross.
I grinned confidently while shutting my locker door, even though
my heart was pounding and my sweatiness all over my body
intensified. “Sure, my after-hours job is zombie rescue. I retrieve
zombies and put them back in their habitat.”
She pulled her peacoat from her locker and put it on over her
raggedy dress. “Great! There’s a Dick’s Hamburgers on the way to
my house. I need food. I’ll buy you dinner and a milkshake if you
want.”
When we got outside, rain assaulted us from every direction. We’d
already had ten days of straight rain, not unusual for October in
Seattle. And the seven-day forecast? Even more rain.
Kate studied the flyers on the corkboard next to the entrance while
I locked up. She stared hard at the neon-green Zombiegeddon
advertisement, examining every word. Zombiegeddon was a new
zombie-themed survival competition with a huge cash prize. It was
on the same day as my big-time cross-country meet a month away,
so I hadn’t bothered to look into it more.
When we finally got to my car, I swiped my accordion folder of
college financial aid applications off the front passenger seat and
tossed it in the back. I handed Kate a wad of clean tissues from my
pocket to mop up her runny makeup and also used some to wipe my
forehead’s fountain of sweat.
As I turned the key in the ignition, I wondered, If we are eating
hamburgers and it is her treat, does this count as a date?
Kate took a selfie just before wiping off her cheeks. “I look scarier
now than I did before. I might try this look tomorrow. Maybe I’ll
stick my head under the shower or something.”
Her boot thumped hard against something on the floorboard.
“Oops,” she said apologetically. “I hope I didn’t break anything.” She
bent down to look. “Wow, is this where you keep guns and ammo?”
I laughed. “That’s my dad’s trusty six-drawer toolbox. It’s older
than I am.” He always liked to consider himself handy around the
house, but Mom and I called him Mr. Fixer-Downer. “He refuses to
hire plumbers or handymen. He’s a do-it-yourselfer, to save money.
Watches YouTube videos and thinks he’s a pro.”
“Oh, that’s cool!” Kate sighed and glanced at the toolbox again.
“My dad’s not handy at all. He outsources everything.”
I wished we outsourced more. “Well, I didn’t say my dad was good
at it. He once spent three hours building a three-cube bookshelf.”
“In his defense, IKEA furniture is a pain in the ass to put together.
Don’t let those cute cartoon drawing instructions fool you,” she
teased.
“Yeah! How do they manage to have like forty types of different
screws with all sorts of head shapes in an impossible-to-open plastic
baggie for just one stool? I should be nicer to my dad.”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel at a stoplight and
snuck a quick glance at her. “Too bad I don’t work tomorrow. Do you
work any other days too?” Saturday nights were when I played State
of Decay on Xbox Live with my buddies. There were three of us, and
we’d all played together since middle school. I was z0mbie_killir_1.
Spelling was never my forte.
Kate shook her head. “I’m only working Friday and Saturday
nights. It’s okay, though. That works out with school and other
stuff.”
“I usually work Monday-Wednesday-Friday.” It dawned on me that
the next time I’d see her was the next Friday. “It’s cool we’ll be able
to work together, at least for a few weeks.”
Kate shrugged. “I’m a temp zombie for now, but maybe if I do a
good job, the guys in charge will keep me around for the whole
year.”
“Yeah, think about all the holidays after Christmas! Valentine’s Day.
Saint Patrick’s Day. Easter. And who doesn’t love an Easter zombie?”
I waggled my eyebrows the best I could.
She smiled at me as she grabbed my phone from the center
console and typed her address into the maps app. “I live twenty
minutes away. Looks like there’s a little bit of traffic on the way
there. Sorry. But we can do our Dick’s pit stop, and maybe the roads
will clear up.” She leaned forward and peered at the radio. “Mind if I
turn it on?”
Heat flushed to my cheeks, starkly contrasting with my rain-pelted,
clammy skin. “This is my mom’s car. It’s super old, so there’s nothing
automatic on it. You might even have to turn the knob.” My ears
burned with embarrassment. “And her preset stations are NPR, easy
listening, and classical crap, so no judging. But yeah, fiddle with it if
you want.”
She punched one of my mom’s preset stations and “Jingle Bell
Rock” came on. Already? It was only October! I thought there were
rules against that shit.
“Yes! Holiday music!” she squealed. “Don’t you love Christmas
music?”
Ugghhh, noooo. Kill me now. “Yeah. It’s great.”
Mickey’s Christmas Carol was the only Christmasy thing I liked.
Scrooge McDuck was rich, focused, and no-nonsense. When asked
the question “Who would I have dinner with, real or fictional?” I
always answered Scrooge McDuck. I didn’t dare tell Kate all this,
though, given her affinity for the shittiest yuletide song in history.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
blue, with an occasional touch of red in the skirts. The girls wear
their jackets open down to the waist; but married women wear a kind
of felt apron suspended from just above the breast. This felt is made
of wool, which is beaten until it reaches the required thickness and
density and becomes a solid mass. The cloth of which the jacket is
made has a shiny surface like sateen, which also is produced by
beating. Some of them wear thick twisted coils of scarlet thread
wound twice round the head and fixed with a scarlet wooden comb.
I got my interpreter to make a list of the different Miao tribes living
in the part of the province we visited. He did this at the dictation of
one of their number. The various Miao-chia (chia means “family”) are
mainly named on account of differences of clothing, especially as
regards colour, but also sometimes by their occupation, as the
“Shrimps” (Sa Miao), so called because they sell fresh-water fish and
shrimps; the “Magpies,” called after the birds, because their dress is
black and white; and the “West of the Water Miao” (Hsen-hsi Miao)
because they live on the west of the river that we crossed between
Anshunfu and Ta-ting: they are said to number only six villages.

Pei Chun Miao (they wear aprons on their backs).


Ta Hsiang ” ( ” ” broad sleeves).
Hsiao ” ( ” ” small sleeves).
Hsiang
Ching ” ( ” ” green clothes).
Ching[24] ” ( ” ” large combs).
Yi Chun ” ( ” ” their clothes tucked up into their
belts).
Wu Chian ”
Chuan ” (= River Miao).
Fu Tu ”
Han ”

In S. R. Clarke’s book, Among the Tribes in South-West China,


much useful information is given about these tribes, under the
headings of four groups, the Miao, the Heh-lao, the Chung-chia and
the I-chia, or Lolo, or Nosu. Having lived for thirty-three years in
China, mainly in Kweichow, he has collected many legends and
details of their beliefs. The most interesting group to me was the I-
chia, of whom my interpreter made a long list at the dictation of an
evangelist, who was an I-chia. The tribes seem to have kept pretty
distinct from one another up to the present time, but if peace reigns
and they all become civilized, it is likely that the barrier to
intermarriage will tend to break down.
The “Wooden Combs” are ancestor worshippers like the Chinese,
and we had the good fortune to be given three of their
“dooteepoussas” (I do not know how this word should be spelt, but
have written it phonetically), namely sections of bamboo, each
containing “a soul,” wrapped in cotton wool and fastened with a
thread. A wooden pin runs crosswise through the bamboo, which
prevents the “soul” being drawn out by a tiny bunch of grass, which
protrudes from the top of the soul-carrier. As will be seen by the
illustration, these are exactly in the shape of crosses and they have
little cuts on the bamboo varying in number, which refer to the
deceased. The Lolos also have these soul-carriers. In Yünnan
Province the shape of these soul-carriers approximates to the
Chinese ancestral tablets and Clarke gives another form of them
which he calls a spirit hamper. The name “lolo” given to these tribes
by the Chinese is said to come from this fact, lolo meaning a basket.
The Lolos consider the name to be a term of terrible reproach, but do
not object to be called Nosu or I-chia. They keep these spirits in their
houses, or a tree, or hidden in a rock. The ones I possess are kept in
a long box fastened against the outer wall of a house, with a shelter
over it like a shrine: sometimes more than one family keeps their
soul-carriers in the same box. The funeral rites of these people are
very elaborate and extend over a whole year. Dr. A. Henry has kindly
given me permission to quote his account of these people and their
language from the Journal of the Anthropological Society for 1903.
He spent much time studying their habits and language in Yünnan,
and brought back from there large quantities of MSS., ancestral
tablets and dresses.
“The ceremonies and rituals in case of death and burial are
numerous and complicated. After death a hole is made with a pole in
the roof of the house to enable the breath or soul to escape. A cow is
brought to the door of the house, and from its head is extended a
white cord, which is fastened to the hand of the corpse lying inside
the coffin, and a ritual called Su-pu is read. If the death is unclean
(all cases of death by accident, childbirth, suicide, etc., are impure,
also a death is considered impure unless some one has been
present when it occurred), a preliminary purificatory ritual is
necessary, after which the usual rituals can be recited. On the
second and third days after death two important rituals, the meh-cha
and wu-cha, are read. When the coffin is being carried out for burial,
a paper effigy is placed on it, which represents clothes for the soul of
the dead man. At this time also the priest recites the “Jo-mo” or road
ritual, and he accompanies the coffin a hundred paces from the
house. The ritual begins by stating that as in life the father teaches
the son, and the husband the wife, it is only the priest who can teach
the dead man the road that his soul must travel after death. The
threshold of the house is first mentioned, then the various places on
the road to the grave, and beyond that all the towns and rivers and
mountains that must be traversed by the soul till it reaches the
Taliang Mountain, the home of the Lolo race. (The Lolos come
mainly from Szechwan and the borders of Tibet.) Here the priest
says that he himself must return, and entreats the dead man to
pursue his way beyond the grave alone. The dead man then enters
Hades, and stands beside the Thought Tree and the Tree of Talk,
and there he thinks of the dear ones left behind and weeps bitterly.
After this ritual is read, the priest returns to the house, and the coffin
goes on to the grave.
The Lolos believe that for each person on earth there is a
corresponding star in the sky. So when a man is ill, a sacrifice is
often made of wine in cups to his star, and four-and-twenty lamps
are lighted outside his room. On the day after a funeral a hole is dug
in the death-chamber at a spot indicated by rolling an egg on the
ground till it stops. A ritual is recited praying the star of the dead man
to descend and be buried in this hole. If this were not done the star
would fall and possibly hurt some one.
The ancestral tablet is made on the second day after the funeral
and erected in the central room of the house on the ninth day, with
an appropriate ritual. It is worshipped on certain dates and on all
important occasions in life. It is called I-pu (= ancestor). It consists of
a structure of wooden pieces, made out of the Pieris tree, the log of
which was the ark of the Lolo deluge. A transverse bundle of grass is
made of the same grass as is used for thatch. Two pieces of bamboo
root represent the deceased father and mother, one having nine, the
other seven joints. The inscription reads: “The dwelling place of so-
and-so (giving the name), the pair, man and woman, our ancestors.”
It is written by the priest with ink, the water of which is brought by the
son of the house from a secret spring in the forest, from a locality
only known to the family of the deceased.”
My three soul-carriers contain the souls of the men of three
generations—son, father, grandfather. The Lolos have a Book of the
Dead which Dr. Henry considers to be not unlike that of the ancient
Egyptians.
There are a great many Lolo tribes, and the one which we came in
contact with at Ta-ting is of great antiquity, showing virile and
intellectual qualities that promise well for future development, should
they leave their old isolation and get drawn into the stream of
present-day Chinese progress. They are tall and well built, quite
unlike the Chinese in appearance and carriage. Naturally the open-
air life of all these tribesmen gives them a freer gait, and the
absence of etiquette and formality shows itself in all their
movements. The shape of their faces is oval, unlike the broad Miao
type; their eyes are large and level; their cheekbones prominent and
the contour of the face rounded; their noses long, arched and rather
broad; their chins pointed. Their faces are apt to grow very wrinkled.
The poise of the head of all these men struck me as indicative of an
independent spirit.
All the tribes are practically autonomous, although nominally under
Chinese rule: they have their own rulers, but these are responsible
to, and many of them nominated by, the Chinese authorities. They
frequently rent lands from them for cultivation, and law suits are very
common among the I-chia about land and about daughters-in-law.
Since the recrudescence of opium-poppy growing they have been
compelled to use a certain proportion of land for its cultivation. They
are not addicted to opium-smoking, and the Christians object to it on
moral grounds: they have in consequence suffered considerable
persecution and have even been evicted from the lands they had
previously cultivated. They are terribly poor, and when the crops fail
many of them die of starvation; this has happened during the last two
years, which has been a period of great scarcity.
I quote in full Dr. Henry’s extremely interesting account of their
language. “The Lolo language is of extreme simplicity, both as
regards its phonology and syntax, and its manner of making new
words. It belongs to the monosyllabic class of languages, of which
Chinese is the most highly developed member. Attempts have been
made to deny the primitive monosyllabic nature of the Chinese
language, and to consider it as broken down from some pre-existent
polysyllabic agglutinative tongue. I am of opinion that a comparative
study of Chinese, Lolo, Miao, etc., will establish that this tonal
monosyllabic class is primitive, and that we have the vocabularies of
these languages’ original roots unchanged.
“To illustrate the simplicity of Lolo phonology, I may state that all
words are monosyllables, composed of either a vowel or of a
consonant followed by a vowel, as A, O, BA, BO, BI, BU. Such
combinations as AB, ARD, STO, STAR are impossible. The initial
consonants may all be considered simple, though such varieties
occur as T and aspirated T, and four sibilants, as S, Z, TS and DZ.
There is one apparent exception, namely SL, in SLA, SLO, SLU; but
I found that this occurred in another district as THL, showing a
certain instability of sound; and further research established that the
original sound, still kept in Lolodom, is an aspirated L, so that we
have L’O, L’A, L’U. Similar aspirations occur in connexion with T, P,
CH, K and NG.
“Tones in Lolo are three or four, according to locality. There are no
inflections whatsoever, the simple roots being unchangeable. All the
words are simple roots, but by simple addition they can be used to
express new ideas, thus gunpowder is now called fire-rice. I could
only find one modification of the simple roots, occurring in four
causative verbs, and they are these:

DZO, to eat. CHO, to give to eat, to feed.


DA, to drink. TA, to give to drink.
DU, to go out. TU, to cause to go out.
DEH, to wear. TEH, to give to wear.

“The syntax is very simple, the place of words in the sentence


being the most important factor. Post-positions, personal and
demonstrative pronouns, interrogative words, adverbs of time, and a
few auxiliary verbs occur; but relatives and conjunctions are absent.
Numeral co-efficients are present, as in all the Chinese group of
languages and in Malay. We cannot say two men, ten trees, but
must say man two person, tree ten stem. The plural, tenses of verbs,
etc., are rarely expressed, unless absolutely needed; and a Lolo
sentence is very suggestive of baby talk. Thus, ‘If he comes I shall
not see him,’ is expressed as ‘He come I he not see’; and ‘When he
came I did not see him’ as ‘He come that time I not see.’
“I consider that the simple phonology and primitive syntax of the
Lolo language are important to study, as we there see a primitive
monosyllabic tongue, composed of simple roots, the type by which
all languages must have begun.”
Ancient I-chia Script.

Page 130

The Miao people were invited many years ago by the missionaries
to learn to write their own language in romanized script, but they
refused, saying they preferred their children to learn to read and
write Chinese. It is obvious that this would be far better for them from
a practical point of view. A Miao who knows Chinese thus can make
a good living by translating Chinese contracts or official documents
for his neighbours.
The religion of all these tribes is mainly animistic, but the Lolos
have priests, though not temples. The priests have tents, divided into
two parts, of which one is holy and the other holier. Their sacrifices
have to be of flawless creatures, cows and fowls. Their creed might
be summed up as “I believe in evil spirits, necromancy, ancestor
worship and a future life.” By far the most potent factor in their
existence is terror of demons. All their existence is overshadowed by
fear. There are all kinds of horrible demons of various colours, green
and red and blue: some have dishevelled hair and some have hair
standing on end. To add to the horror, although they are like men in
appearance, they are invisible. They shoot arrows of disease and
send bad dreams to men.

“Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,


And the whisper spreads and widens far and near:
And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now—
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear.”

In Yünnan they worship a stone placed at the foot of a Dragon


tree, either in a wood behind the village or close to the houses. I did
not see any in Kweichow, though I sketched just such a stone in
Macao, where there were offerings of incense and scarlet paper.
There is a sacrifice of a pig and a fowl made twice a year at the
stone. The origin of this worship is not known, but it is now supposed
to be addressed to a god in the sky, who protects the people. As
regards the tree, it is a curious fact that it is not of any particular
species, but that every village in the province of Yünnan, whether of
the Chinese or of the aborigines, has one; they have the same belief
about its being inhabited by a dragon, which protects the village.
The Ya-ch’io Miao offer in sacrifice an ox to Heaven and a pig to
Earth, and once every thirteen years they sacrifice buffaloes to
Heaven. Their sorcerers are men who wield great power, and it is a
hereditary profession. The sorcerer must wear a special kind of hat
when he is engaged in divination: without it he is powerless. He has
special books (of which I am fortunate enough to possess one) with
movable disks, superimposed one on another, for casting
horoscopes. These books are handed down from generation to
generation, and used to be copied out by hand; but nowadays they
are printed. Such books were brought by an I-chia, who had become
a Christian, in order to have them burnt; the missionary asked leave
to keep them instead, explaining their historic value. The
accompanying illustration is taken from one of these priceless old
MSS. describing the Creation. It is written on a brittle kind of paper,
extremely worn and fragile, and the leaves are fastened together
with twisted strips of paper, acting as a string. This is a peculiarly
Chinese way of binding, such as you may see students practising
any day in class to fasten their notes. The colour of the paper is
brown, the characters black, and the illustrations are painted in
several shades of yellow and brown, forming a harmonious whole.
The upper circle, containing a bird, is the moon; and the lower circle,
containing a beast, is the earth.
Dr. Henry brought a large number of MSS. back from Yünnan,
which are now in the British Museum, but they differ in certain
respects from mine. In the first place, they contain no diagrams;
secondly, they are all divided up metrically into groups of five
characters, or seven; mine are not all divided into groups (as may be
seen from the illustration, Ancient I-chia Script), and those that are in
groups vary in number, four, or five, or six. He says that the subject-
matter of all the MSS. which he studied is religious ritual,
genealogies, legends and song, and all are written in verse. The
script is quite unique: it is pictographic in origin, not ideographic like
the Chinese. Many Chinese words are compound, one part denoting
sound, the other part denoting meaning: Lolo words are never
compounds.
The characters, as will be seen from the illustration, are decidedly
simpler than Chinese. I had the good fortune to submit my MSS.
when I was at Swatow (a couple of months later) to a learned
Chinese scholar, who seemed greatly interested in them. He took
them into his hands with devout reverence and care, as if they were
of priceless value. He said that he had indeed seen such MSS.
before, but that it was extremely rare: he at once said that it came
from no Chinese source, but from aborigines in the north of
Kweichow. When I asked if it were some hundreds of years old, he
replied, “Oh! much older than that,” and stated that the numerals and
certain other characters were the same as the Chinese script of
three thousand years ago. One of the characters which he pointed
out was that for the moon:

My MS. gives

Dr. Henry’s

Chinese

I have also compared my MS. with pages of Lolo writing published


by Colborne Baber in the Geographical Society’s Supplementary
Paper, 1882, and can find no exact correspondence between them.
Surely it would be a most interesting study for some one to
undertake, the more so that there is already a wealth of material
lying ready to hand at the British Museum. The Lolo writing is also
different from Chinese in that it is read in columns from left to right
and the book begins at the same end as ours. It corresponds with
the later Syriac mode of writing, and Dr. Henry suggests it may have
had some connexion with the Nestorians, who were to be found in all
parts of China from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries. S. R.
Clarke mentions a spirit who controls the crops, and is called by the
Lolos Je-so: the Christians suggested that this name be the one
adopted for Jesus Christ, but it was not done.
The above-mentioned theory would account for some of the Lolo
practices and beliefs, which are otherwise very difficult to account
for, such as their keeping the Sabbath every sixth day, when no
ploughing is allowed to be done, and the women are not even
allowed to sew or wash clothes on that day. Of course this does not
apply to all Lolos, but only to some in Yünnan. They have also the
remarkable crosses (as seen in the soul-carriers), and they believe
in patriarchs who lived to abnormal ages, such as six hundred and
sixty or nine hundred and ninety years, as in the Old Testament
records, not to mention the stories of the creation and the deluge.
Their name for Adam has the two consonants d and m, it is Du-mu.
The patriarchs are supposed to live in the sky: the chief of them is
called Tse-gu-dzih, and this patriarch is also a deity who opened the
box containing the seeds of death; he thus gave suffering humanity
the boon of death. He also caused the deluge.
“The legend of the deluge,” says Dr. Henry, “runs that the people
were wicked, and Tse-gu-dzih to try them sent a messenger to earth,
asking for some blood and flesh from a mortal. All refused but Du-
mu. Tse-gu-dzih then locked the rain gates, and the water mounted
to the sky. Du-mu (? Adam) was saved with his four sons in a log
hollowed out of the Pieris tree; and there were also saved otters, wild
ducks and lampreys. From his sons are descended civilized people
who can write, as the Chinese and Lolos. The ignorant races
descend from men that were made by Du-mu out of pieces of wood.
Du-mu is worshipped as the ancestor of the Lolos, and nearly all
legends begin with some reference (like our ‘once upon a time’) to
Du-mu or the Deluge. Du-mu and precedent men had their eyes
placed vertically in their sockets; after him came the present race of
men, who have their eyes placed horizontally. This quaint idea may
have some reference to the encroachment of the oblique-eyed
Mongolians, who have horizontal eyes, as it were, i.e. eyes narrow in
height, whereas Europeans and other races have eyes that may be
called vertical, i.e. wide from above downwards.
“The Lolos have a cosmogony. Their account of the Creation is
that there were two Spirits, A-chi and A-li. A-chi made the sky, and
made it evenly and well. A-li slept, and on awakening saw that the
sky was completed. In his hurry to do his work, he dumped hurriedly
earth here and there. This accounts for the inequalities of the earth’s
surface. When the sky was first created the sun and moon were dull,
and did not shine properly. They were washed by two sky-maidens,
and have remained clean and bright ever since.”
Some of the Lolo tribes have the story of the Creation, but not all
of them, whereas the story of the Deluge is universal, though not
always the same. In some cases Noah has three sons, and in some
no animals are mentioned. The Black Miao story is told thus by S. R.
Clarke, to whom it was dictated:

“Who made Heaven and Earth?


Who made insects?
Who made men?
Made male and made female?
I who speak don’t know.

Vang-vai (Heavenly King) made Heaven and Earth,


Ziene made insects.
Ziene made men and demons,
Made male and made female.
How is it you don’t know?

Heavenly King is (or was) intelligent.


Spat a lot of spittle into his hand,
Clapped his hands with a noise,
Produced heaven and earth.

Tall wild grass made insects.


Stones made men and demons.
Made male and made female.
How is it you don’t know?

Made heaven in what way?


Made earth in what way?
Thus by rote I sing,
But don’t understand.

Made heaven like a sun-hat.


Made earth like a dust-pan.
Why don’t you understand?
Made heaven a single lump,
Made earth a single lump.”[25]

This is just a sample of their ideas; now I will give a sample of their
habits. They have big carouses on the open mountain slopes. A man
desirous to enter into relationship with a girl will watch his
opportunity for seeing her alone, and give as a signal a wide
sweeping movement of the arm: if she acquiesces she will go to the
carouse. These do not take place at stated intervals, but a party of
young men will go off with girls in groups of twenty or thirty and sit
round a big fire, singing their amorous ditties. These are mostly of a
coarse nature not suited for publication, but Dr. Henry has translated
the following song by girls working in the fields addressed to boys:

“We girls three


The black earth’s silver bridge,
Together with you youths, we have crossed it;
The white sky’s golden hat,
With you we have worn it;
The golden fan of the sun and moon,
Together we have seen it wave.
We girls and boys to-night have met.
Singing and playing comes from the hearts of boys and girls;
Silver comes from China;
Silk from the capital;
The rice from the plain;
The wheat from the mountain,
But courting-talk comes from the mouths of boys.”

While the “courting-talk” goes on round the fire, there is a goodly


store of weapons lying behind the singers. Any moment they may be
attacked by the parents, brothers or friends of the girls. When this
happens and the attack proves successful the luckless revellers are
stripped naked.
The custom of the Little Flowery Miao is somewhat similar. Twice a
year the men make music outside the houses where the girls live,
and those who please go off with them to the hills for a carouse.
Once a year the men choose their girls, and the other time the girls
choose their men! The girls usually marry about fifteen or sixteen,
and if they happen to be poor they go to the mother-in-law’s house
very young. Among the tribes there are go-betweens to arrange
marriages, but undoubtedly the young people have a better chance
of selection by mutual liking than have the Chinese.
The music of the people is mostly produced from pipes, and has a
certain charm; it is flute-like in sound, and some we heard was not
unlike that of bagpipes without the drone. The I-chia are all fond of
music and dancing. They were rather shamefacedly persuaded to
dance for us, while one of them played. The steps were rather slow
and stealthy, alternating with rapid pirouetting. They sank almost to
the ground on one bent leg, while the other leg shot out in front to its
furthest limit.
Witchcraft is firmly believed in by all the tribes. The witch-doctor
has a great hold over them, and trades on their superstition
shamelessly, getting wine, tobacco, or corn by means of what is
called his “daemon,” without apparently stealing the things himself.
The witch-doctor uses snake-poison to injure or kill people, and only
he can make them well again! He also induces madness, so that the
madman may fling off his clothes, which the doctor then picks up and
carries off!
A curious story was told by an eye-witness to my friends in Ta-ting.
He was present at the building of a house in the country by two
stonemasons. They began quarrelling, and finally one went off in a
great rage, refusing to finish his job. The other remarked confidently,
“It does not matter; I shall get him back before evening”; but the
onlookers did not believe it. The narrator of the story saw him go off
to the hill-side and gather a bunch of grass and straw. He fashioned
these into the figure of a man and cast spells upon it, after which he
returned to his job and went on as if nothing had happened. Before
he had finished the day’s work, the other man returned in great
haste, dripping with perspiration; he apologized for his conduct and
resumed work. He explained that after he had left in the morning he
became very ill and suffered such agonies of pain that he felt sure he
would die if he did not return at once.
Such is the kind of story that is current everywhere. It is a matter
of common belief that the witch-doctor never has any children, and
that this is a punishment from heaven. The influence of the
missionaries brings them frequently into contact with strange
happenings: one of them in Ta-ting. Miss Welzel was asked to visit a
woman who had taken poison, to see if she could do anything for
her: on inquiring into the case she was told that there had been no
quarrel or any other known reason for her committing suicide. The
woman said she had seen daemons come into the house through
the window, who told her to take two ounces of opium in brandy,
which she immediately did, after which she announced the fact to
her family. They sent for Miss Welzel, but it was too late: the woman
died a few moments after her arrival.
Great Flowery Miao.

Page 125
A Roadside Restaurant.

Page 140

The funeral rites, which take place in the fields, include the burning
of buffaloes’ horns, cows’ bones, etc., on a kind of altar.
Our stay among the tribes and all we heard about them led us to
believe that they are capable of becoming a valuable asset to the
empire, and the progress now being made in civilizing them is most
encouraging. Some have even been sent as elected members of the
first Parliament of the Chinese Republic. They have proved
themselves capable of taking literary degrees on the same footing as
the Chinese. One of the most powerful viceroys in Western China
was a Nosu. In S. Pollard’s book, In Unknown China, he mentioned
the interesting fact that he had obtained (through a friend) the
opinion of the brilliant Dr. Wu Ting Fang (formerly Chinese Minister
at Washington) as to the position of the tribes in the new five-
coloured flag. He places them in the red bar, which stands first of the
colours, reckoning them as Sons of Han, namely among the
Chinese.
Chapter VI
The Province of Hunan

“You’ve seen the world


—The beauty and the wonder and the power,
The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades,
Changes, surprises—and God made it all!
—For what? Do you feel thankful, aye, or no,
For this fair town’s face, yonder river’s line,
The mountain round it and the sky above,
Much more the figures of man, woman, child,
These are the frame to? What’s it all about?
To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon,
Wondered at?...
... This world’s no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.”

—R. Browning.

Chapter VI
The Province of Hunan

We spent about three weeks in Hunan, and the weather was


broken all the time. Many days it rained, and occasionally there were
violent thunderstorms, so that our journey was delayed. We left the
province of Kweichow on May 14, and found ten days in our little
house-boat quite entertaining and recuperative, as it afforded time
for rest after the strenuous journey over the highways and by-ways
of that province. The river scenery was often very grand, though not
INN PAPER WINDOW.

equal to the Yangtze gorges. There was constant variety to occupy


our attention, stopping at towns and villages, watching the other river
craft, and making up arrears of correspondence. We had also been
provided by Mr. Davies with a bundle of newspapers, and were glad
to learn what was going on in the outer world, from which we
seemed so completely shut out for the time being. It really did not
matter that the papers were a few weeks old; the main thing was that
we should not be so entirely ignorant of what had happened during
our absence, when once more we reached home.
Mr. Davies had considerable difficulty in getting us a boat, as the
boatmen were all anxious to get loads of opium for smuggling down

You might also like